Jenny Sanford

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South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford wasn't the only one who went missing this week: His wife, Jenny, was conspicuously absent from his tearful, rambling press conference on Wednesday where he
admitted to having an affair.

Sanford isn't the first political wife to step aside at such a moment in her husband's life and career.

Nevada Republican Sen.

John Ensign was also alone when he apologized for his infidelities with a staffer in a tight-lipped Capitol Hill press conference.

And former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards confessed his cheating in a one-on-one interview on ABC's "Nightline." "I not only didn't ask her to be here, I asked her not to be here,"
said Edwards.

"She should not be involved in protecting me from whatever the consequences of this are." The solo confessional marks a recent shift in what had been a well-honed political playbook.

"It's hard to imagine a situation like 1992 where having seen what Bill Clinton had done with Gennifer Flowers, Hillary had to stand there and endorse his behavior to some extent," said Jennifer
Lawless, a political science professor at Brown University who specializes in women and politics.

"It seems like when the circumstances are egregious enough we probably don't expect the wife to be there." The traditional rule book for adultery damage control always recommends something like this:
cheating candidate confesses, sheds a tear if he can (and it has always been a he), and then pleads for mercy with a pained, tight-lipped wife standing mutely by his side.

That's how Suzanne Craig handled it when her husband, then Idaho Republican Sen.

Larry Craig, admitted that he pled guilty to disorderly conduct after he was arrested for lewd behavior in a men's bathroom stall.

Louisiana Republican Sen.

David Vitter came clean about his involvement in a Washington, D.C., prostitution ring with his wife, Wendy Baldwin Vitter, standing next to him.

And a shell-shocked Silda Wall Spitzer, stood next to her husband, then-New York Gov.

Elliot Spitzer, after he was caught on a federal wiretap soliciting a high-priced prostitute.

But increasingly, say feminists, communications experts and political consultants, political wives are not only staying home â€" they're speaking out.

On late Wednesday, Jenny Sanford released a statement saying that she requested a trial separation from her husband two weeks ago.

"We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong," she said.

Elizabeth Edwards wrote a book detailing her reaction to John's affair.

And in a high-profile interview with Oprah in their North Carolina mansion, it was her husband who tried to look stoic as he awkwardly chatted about his transgressions.

It was the experience of Silda Spitzer, say experts, that really changed apology attitudes.

Although she stood next to her husband through two excursing press conferences, her agonized expression undid any political benefit he might have expected from having her by his side.

"I actually think that there was a little backlash after the Silda Spitzer thing in that it was the first time we saw a politician's wife's face â€” really the cost of it and the agony," says Anne
Taylor Fleming, a author of several books about family and marriage issues.

But, Fleming notes, Spitzer's presence may have helped her husband's recent re-entry into the public arena.

The former governor has a regular column on Slate.com and has been making the rounds on cable news.

"Even though there can be an immediate cringe," she says, "I think the fact that she was able to stand with him and they survived, keeps him possible."